Piper introduced herself and asked, “Do you have a couple of minutes?”
Wendy glanced at her watch and nodded. “I have at least ten. That’s when my next class arrives.” She took a sip from a water bottle. “Were you thinking of signing up?”
“No,” Piper admitted. “Though tai chi does look intriguing.”
“It can improve your muscle strength, flexibility, and balance, and,” Wendy added with a smile, “lower blood pressure.”
“I have no idea if my blood pressure needs lowering,” Piper said, grinning, then grew serious. “Actually, I’m looking into Raffaele Conti’s murder.”
“Oh!” Wendy’s cheeks flushed, and she took a deep breath. “That was such a shock.” She turned away slightly and took a long swallow from her water bottle.
“I’m sorry. I know you were friends.”
“We knew each other in high school.”
“And you reconnected when the soccer team came to town?”
“We did.” She bent down to the CD player that sat on the small table and popped out a disc, replacing it with a second one. “It was like all the years since we’d last seen each other simply melted away. It was quite overwhelming.”
“I imagine it must have been. I’ve heard Raffaele was very charming.”
“‘Charming’ isn’t strong enough to describe him,” Wendy said. She pulled a chair out from the table and waved for Piper to take the other. “‘Hypnotizing’ would be closer.”
Piper could see Wendy had fallen hard. “He was at your place the night he was murdered, wasn’t he?”
Wendy had raised her water bottle for another sip but stopped midway. She nodded silently.
“And you shared this with the sheriff?”
“I did. Once I got past the shock of it all, I realized he would need to know Raffaele’s whereabouts before the . . . what happened. I had hoped that information wouldn’t get out, though. My students tend to be pretty conservative.”
“It won’t go any farther from me, I promise. But you may have heard the rumors concerning Gerald Standley. They’re flying about because of the long-standing bad blood between Raffaele and him as well as the fact that Raffaele was found in Gerald’s dill field—among other things. Things are pretty tense for Gerald right now.”
“I realized the family had pretty much hunkered down after Gerald blocked off his driveway. But I thought it was because of all the curiosity seekers showing up. I had no idea he was considered a suspect.”
“Did Raffaele say anything to you about Gerald?”
Wendy thought a moment. “He made the odd comment here and there, but mostly having to do with the soccer team. He seemed fairly impressed with the Cloverdale players themselves but thought Vince Berner and Gerald Standley were, well, not up to his standards as coaches.”
That didn’t surprise Piper, who figured Wendy had likely softened Conti’s actual words. “Did he mention having met with Gerald or any plans to meet?”
“No, nothing. But if he did intend to meet with him, I can’t imagine it would have been in the middle of the night in the dill field, can you? When Raffaele left my place, I had every impression he was heading straight back to the hotel.”
“Did anyone know he would be at your place?”
Wendy shook her head. “I made sure Raffaele understood it was important to me to be discreet. I’ve been separated for months, and although the final papers haven’t gone through, I consider myself divorced and free to do as I wish. But besides the opinions of my students, or prospective students, there were someone else’s feelings to consider. Someone I’d been seeing, although briefly.”
Piper didn’t ask who, certain that Wendy was referring to Carl Ehlers. “So Raffaele didn’t let anyone from Bianconeri know where he’d be?”
“I’m sure he didn’t. When I informed Sheriff Carlyle, he seemed surprised, and he’d already questioned that group.”
Wendy paused and cleared her throat. “I’m also assuming Raffaele’s wife didn’t know,” she said. Two red spots appeared on her cheeks. “I say that because he was just as circumspect with me.” She looked straight at Piper. “When we arranged for Raffaele to come over, believe me, I had no idea he was married.”
22
As students from the next class began to arrive, Piper left Wendy, then sat in her car in the community center’s parking lot, thinking. A stomach growl interrupted her thoughts, reminding her it was well past her lunchtime, which also decided her on her next move. With a little luck it might produce more than take-out food to share with Amy. She put her car in gear and turned it toward Carlo’s Pizzeria.
The dozen or so plain wooden tables at Carlo’s were empty, and the sole person at the front counter—a stocky woman of about forty whose pinned-up, frizzy blond hair had slipped in several places from its cap—looked bored. She brightened considerably at Piper’s entrance. “Hi! Takeout or eat in?”
“Takeout,” Piper said and glanced at the large overhead menu. “How about a thin crust medium pizza with the works?”
“You got it.” The woman, whose name tag identified her as Crystal, sent the order to the kitchen, then took the credit card Piper held out. As she handed Piper a receipt to sign, she said, “It’ll be a few minutes. Most people call ahead so it’s ready when they come.”
Piper had particularly not called on her cell phone, hoping for the chance to chat with someone like Crystal. “That’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.” She glanced around. “Things are quiet today.”
Crystal sighed and leaned down to rest her forearms on the counter. “We were busier earlier, but it hasn’t been close to what it used to be. Ever since that soccer guy went on the radio.”
“Oh, the one who said Carlo’s wasn’t authentically Italian, um, among other things.”
“Yeah. It was the other things that hurt the worst. Business dropped like a rock. It’s a damned shame, ’cause there’s no truth to that dumb remark. Our kitchen has always passed inspection. But what can you do? Take out ads that say, ‘We don’t have bugs’? We really don’t, by the way,” she assured Piper.
“Carl must be pretty upset, huh?”
“Upset? He turned purple when he first heard about it! I thought he was going to run out and kill the man.” Crystal covered her mouth. “Oops! I forgot. That’s the guy who was shot in the dill field, isn’t it?”
Piper nodded.
“Well, I didn’t mean really murder him, of course. It’s just what you say when you’d like to do that but you actually wouldn’t, you know? Besides, Carl got over it. By Sunday he was more his old self. I suppose he’s assumed people will forget all about it, especially with the man found dead, and all.”
Yes, Piper thought, a murder in the area can definitely divert public attention. It was interesting that Carl apparently calmed down after Conti’s murder, though there could be more than one way to interpret that. Was Carl’s reaction simply relief that an old enemy was gone? Or was it satisfaction over having finally gotten revenge?
The door opened and Don Tucker walked in, dressed in his hotel uniform of navy blazer, tie, and gray slacks.
“Afternoon, ladies. Crystal, may I have a large Coke to go?”
“Sure thing, Don.”
“You must be heading to work,” Piper said.
“Right. My hours change all the time, which works for me. And since it’s such a nice day, I’m walking. Seeing you turn in here made me think a cold drink would be good to take along.”
“Here you are.” Crystal handed him the plastic-lidded cup. “Your pizza,” she said to Piper, “has just two minutes to go.”
“Late lunch, huh?” Don said, reaching for his wallet. “On second thought, Crystal, give me a couple of those cheese sticks.” He grinned. “Just smelling what’s coming from the kitchen has made me hungry.”
As Don was pulling out his
cash, Piper asked Crystal, “How late are you open on Saturdays?”
“We close at twelve.”
“I was here last Saturday after the soccer match, and Carl was here, too. Closing up at twelve must make for a pretty late drive home for Carl, huh? I mean, because there’s usually so much for the owner to do after closing up. I find that with my own shop.”
Crystal had opened her mouth to answer when Carl Ehlers walked out from the kitchen area. “Afternoon, folks! Crystal, you can take your break. I’ll take over for now.”
“But—” Crystal began, looking surprised, but stepped back without further comment and disappeared through an “Employees Only” door.
“These cheese sticks yours?” Carl asked Don and began to ring the order up, saying, “Great weather we’ve been having, eh?”
As Don agreed that it was and added a comment about the forecast, Piper wondered how long Carl had been nearby and within earshot and if her question to Crystal was what had drawn him out of the kitchen.
A young man with a white cap and apron appeared with a flat, white, delicious-smelling box. “Medium with the works?”
“That’s me,” Piper said, holding up her receipt. “Crystal already rang it up.”
“Good, good,” Carl said, nodding and smiling, though his smile struck Piper as somewhat forced. “Enjoy, and have a good day, both of you.” Was he a bit eager for them to go?
“See you, Carl,” Don said as he held the door for Piper. She smiled her thanks as she walked out, then turned toward where she’d left her car. Don turned the same way, which surprised Piper since the Cloverton was in the opposite direction.
“What you mentioned back there jogged my memory,” he said as he walked beside her.
They’d reached Piper’s car, and she paused, keys in one hand and the pizza box balanced in the other. “What was that?”
“That thing about Carl probably driving home late on Saturdays. I’d almost forgotten that there were a few nights, or early mornings, actually, when I did see Carl locking up the pizzeria about one in the morning as I’d be heading home from the hotel. Once in a while I do the late shift, though it’s not my favorite.”
“Did you see him last Saturday?”
“’Fraid not. Didn’t work that shift then. But I’m saying it’s very possible Carl could have been driving home around the time Conti would have been stopped with his flat tire near the dill field. I say that reluctantly, ’cause I’ve always had a good opinion of Carl. He’s worked hard to get to the point of owning his own business.”
“Which was hurt badly by Conti’s remarks on the radio.”
Don Tucker nodded. “As I said, I’m sorry to say it. But we can’t exactly pick and choose our suspects, can we? Well, your pizza’s getting cold, and I have a job to get to.” Don bid her good day and turned to head toward the hotel.
Piper set her pizza box on the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel, the aroma of pepperoni, oregano, and onion filling the small space by the time she’d buckled up and turned her ignition key. She was eager to get back to the pickling shop, but not only because her pizza was cooling. The trail toward finding Conti’s murderer, she felt, had just grown warmer.
“Mr. Ehlers?” Amy asked, chewing over the possibility of the pizza restaurant owner as killer while at the same time enjoying his pizza. “I don’t know. I still can’t picture him doing something as violent as that. He always seemed so, so . . .” She searched for the right word.
“So harmless?” Piper offered.
“Right.”
“But Martin McDow described a Carl Ehlers who’d been pushed to the limits and went ballistic.”
“As a teenager.”
“True. But is it a stretch to believe that the adult Carl, having been pushed once again by an old nemesis, held his reaction in check for a while but snapped when he saw an opportunity—Raffaele Conti alone on a dark, empty road?”
Amy considered that a few moments. “Maybe not. But Conti was shot. Would Carl have had a gun with him?”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept one with him for protection, particularly if he were leaving his pizzeria late at night carrying the day’s receipts.”
Amy nodded, then took a bite of the dill pickle Piper had added to their lunch treat. It crunched crisply, having been, of course, perfectly prepared by the two of them.
Piper’s shop bell jingled and Amy jumped up. “I’ll get it,” she said, wiping her hands on a paper napkin. As Amy dealt with the customer, Piper continued working at her own slice of pie, thinking that Carl really did make a very good pizza, no matter what Raffaele Conti thought of it. Conti, though, may have said what he had on the radio simply from meanness, which Piper had been gradually learning seemed an ingrained part of his character. What a shame, she thought, since the man had a lot going for him—athletic talent, charm, good looks, certainly enough intelligence to handle a sports team. Why did he feel the need to regularly hurt those around him?
He’d been an outstanding soccer player during his single year at Cloverdale High, but had alienated most of his fellow teammates. He had dozens of girls falling at his feet but went after the one who was in a steady relationship with a fellow soccer player—then nearly date-raped her. He’d married a beautiful woman but continued to chase after other women, and he’d gathered a team of young athletes eager to begin a professional career but tricked at least one into signing a bad contract. Maybe the real question was how the man managed to survive as long as he had instead of who finally shot him in the dill field.
Except, Gerald Standley needed to be cleared of all suspicion. With a crowd of people besides Gerald who would have loved to see Conti dead, the difficulty was narrowing it down to only one. Had Carl Ehlers just moved up a notch on the list?
Piper’s cell phone signaled the arrival of a text. She wiped her hands on her napkin and pulled the phone from her pocket, wondering if the message might be from Will. He wasn’t big on texting but had occasionally resorted to it. A glance at the display erased that thought, as she saw an unfamiliar number. Thinking it must be spam, Piper nonetheless opened the message out of simple curiosity. Instead of a pitch for worry-free banking or low insurance rates, though, she found:
“Keep your nose out of other people’s business or you WILL regret it.”
Piper blinked, unable to believe what she’d just read. After rereading the message for perhaps the fourth time it sank in. She’d been threatened!
The number that had sent the message offered no clue to its origin. A disposable cell phone? Most likely. Whoever had sent it, however, somehow knew Piper’s cell number. He or she was also aware of what she’d been doing lately. Piper glanced around uneasily, having a sudden urge to pull her shades and lock her door.
Who, she wondered, was watching her?
23
“You should tell my dad about that text message.” Amy was wrapping up the last leftover slice of pizza to put away as Piper flattened the box for recycling. She’d shown Amy the threatening text after first dialing the number from the shop phone. Not surprisingly, no one picked up.
“I don’t know what Sheriff Carlyle could do about it,” Piper said, “but maybe you’re right. I’m sure he’ll second the warning to keep my nose out of the investigation.”
“Are you going to?” Amy looked at Piper with genuine concern.
“Amy, do you remember how you felt when Nate was looked at with such suspicion for a crime he didn’t commit?”
“I do, and it was awful!”
“Well, that’s how Miranda is feeling right now about her father, as well as Denise Standley and Gerald himself. I promised all of them I’d do what I could. I’m not going back on that because of one anonymous text. And don’t worry. I think I’ve learned something since Nate’s situation about being careful.”
Amy still looked
concerned but stopped her protesting.
Piper’s shop phone rang, and she hesitated. Despite her assurances to Amy, the text message had shaken her a bit. Was this call going to be a second threat? She shook herself and grabbed the receiver.
“Hi!” Will’s cheerful voice came through the line like a refreshing breeze.
“Hi, yourself, hermit.”
Will chuckled. “I’ve left my hut and climbed blinkingly into the sunlight. Finished the loan application and just dropped it off at the bank.”
“Congratulations! Come on by and we’ll crack open a jar of pickled radishes to celebrate.” Piper heard a soft cough and grinned.
“Let’s hold the celebration until the loan is approved. But I’m glad to stop by. In about five seconds, as a matter of fact.”
Piper looked up and saw Will’s green van had pulled up to the curb outside her window. She laughed and went to the door as he climbed out of the van, pocketing his cell phone.
“I can’t stay long,” Will said, giving her a quick hug. “Working on that application meant neglecting things at the tree farm that I have to catch up on.”
“So you don’t have time for a pickled radish?” Seeing Will’s face at first pucker then quickly shift into polite neutral made Piper burst out laughing. “Never mind. I do have an extra slice of Carlo’s pizza, though, which I could heat up in a second if you’re interested.”
Will’s face lit up at that. “I did skip lunch.”
“I’ll warm it up,” Amy volunteered, already heading to the back room.
“Thanks, Amy,” Piper said. “And I’ll update you about what’s happened since we last talked.”
“Which wasn’t all that long ago.”
“I’ve been busy.” Piper told him about having learned where Raffaele Conti had been before ending up dead in the dill field, leaving out Wendy Prizer’s name. She then explained about the added motive for Carl Ehlers to want to exact revenge on Conti.
“Carl had just restarted his relationship with this woman after possibly years of pining after her. Then Conti blows into town and proceeds to mess up Carl’s life a second time.”
License to Dill Page 15
